Early Christmas Gift

Today I received a wonderful gift in my email, an early update and our new wait list numbers for December!!!!

We are so very excited! In two months we have dropped 15 spaces on the waiting list!!

How to pray specifically for us:

1) Praise: we have 1/3 of our referral fee 

   Request: We need $7,000 more to accept the referral by the time we reach the number one position

2) Praise: we are diligently saving for the cost associated with a baby, and the travel to bring them home

   Request: that we are able to save any addition funds necessary that we are not able to raise, quickly

3) Praise: The list is moving at a steady rate and children are finding forever homes

   Request: The list continues to move at a steady pace, our number drops each month

4) Praise: our agency is a Christian agency that not only places children in a home, they pray for them, guide them, and teach them about Jesus.

   Request: That our hearts are prepared to love our baby, that we would be the parents and examples God wants us to be and that our child will ultimately follow Christ

Orphan Sunday

Yesterday Warren and I had the opportunity to meet other families in our church who have adopted and those who are interested in adoption. We met a wonderful family who brought their son home from Ethiopia in May after 1.5 years on the waiting list. Also, we were able to talk with a couple who have been considering adoption for a while. They had a lot of question and we were able to openly share our experiences with them and explain the process some.

As eager as I am for our baby to come home, my heart breaks when I think of all the children without a home. There are over 4 million orphans in Ethiopia alone! To put that in perspective, it would be like the entire population of Kentucky, 1/4 of New York, or 7 Wyomings!!! In the world there are over 147 million orphans or about 1/2 of the population of the United States.

If you have ever considered adoption just do it. If adoption is not an option for you, please pray that waiting families receive their children soon. That the children waiting will be cared for and that all children will have someone in their lives who will show them God's love. 

Our lives have been so blessed because of this process and I can't wait to see what else God has for us!!

Wait List Number

We got our new number today!

We are slowly making progress :)

Thank You/Update

Just wanted to say a quick thank you to everyone who helped make the spaghetti fundraiser such a success. We are so thankful to all our friends and family who been praying for us, we know that without those prayers our adoption would not happen.

As of Saturday night, we are officially 1/3 of the way to the referral fee goal (this is part of our ultimate goal). God has been so good to us and I know that He will continue to make a way to bring the child He has for us into our arms.

Our new fundraiser is a Tastefully Simple party in Corbin on Nov. 4th. Feel free to contact me for more details or to place an order :)

If you would like more information about how much we need, or what adoption fees we will incur, we will happily discuss that privately.

Wait List Number

Our number is:



So what does this mean?

Once a dossier arrives in Ethiopia, it receives a number. At first glance this may seem like a large number and a long wait, and while it could be, that's not necessarily the case. Every family is on the same list regardless of the child they are hoping to adopt. For example, number 1 may be requesting a boy so if the next referral is a girl, then family 2 would receive the referral. Family 1 would be next in line for a boy...they don't lose their place, but people can move around them. People in front of us could be requesting special needs, a specific gender, sibling groups, etc.

At the beginning of each month we will receive our new number and will post it to the blog. This will help us to have a better estimate as to where we are.

To count down at home we made a paper chain and hung it in the soon to be nursery! Dorky, I know, but it gives us a tangible visual of our goal!

Tax Credit

As many of you know, adoption is expensive. The cost of adoption is what prohibits many people from even looking into or pursuing adoption. However; there are options to "help" finance an adoption. Such options include: diligent financial planning and savings on your part, fundraisers, donations, loans, and prayer that God will provide away. One of the lesser known avenues to assist in the cost is the adoption tax credit. This credit is applied once the adoption is final. The credit does not provide aid prior to the adoption being final, but helps with the bills associated with the adoption cost after the baby is home. Families who use this still have to find a way to afford the adoption themselves so it's not by any means a reduction in the cost of an adoption.

This tax credit is set to expire on Dec. 31, 2012. Warren and I are joining in the fight to extend this credit and would love for our friends and families to take part. Please check out the links below for more information. We are urging you to learn about the credit, pray about the situation, and take just a few moments to write a letter on behalf of every family who is and will adopt, it would mean so much!

http://adoptiontaxcredit.org/advocate/

http://adoptiontaxcredit.org/advocate/sample-letter/

Spaghetti Dinner

My wonderful home church in Corbin is hosting a spaghetti dinner to help us raise funds for our upcoming adoption!

The dinner will be at the church on Oct. 6th starting at 5:30pm . If you need more information or directions please let us know.

We hope to see you there :)

Package to Ethiopia

We just received confirmation today that our dossier was mailed yesterday afternoon to Ethiopia, EEK!! So it has passed all the US government requirements, and received the seal of approval. The package is due to arrive in Addis Ababa sometime Monday. Once our USCIS (immigration) approval arrives, it will follow the same path as our dossier. It will be mailed to various government agencies here in the US to obtain all the official seals and then it too will be sent to Ethiopia. That letter should arrive within the next 2-3 weeks.

This does not affect our wait time for a referral, it just simply means that I have confirmation that the adoption is still going through. I have poured a lot of prayer, work, tears, and dreams into preparing this dossier and now that it's completely out of my control, it's a comfort to be able to see progress still being made.

.

Fingerprints

We went to Cincinnati today for our final set of fingerprints. Surprisingly, the people we encountered today at the federal building were some of the most kind and helpful in this whole process. When we were walking through security they were smiling and seemed to be enjoying their jobs The guard leaving for his break even walked us to the fingerprint room which was good because the building was big and not well mapped out.

The lady in the fingerprint office was nice but once she realized that we were there for immigration approval for adoption she seemed genuinely excited for us. My appointment was at 1 and Warren's was scheduled for 3 but when we arrived early at noon, they took us both straight back and we were finished in under 30 minutes.

Warren and I had the rest of the afternoon to walk around downtown Cincinnati and enjoy his day off work.

Looking forward to receiving our official USCIS approval off to catch up with our dossier.

Meles Zenawi

Yesterday the Prime Minister of Ethiopia passed away abroad due to illness. The Prime Minister was responsible for overseeing the government and military. Despite mixed opinions of the man, and the fact that an interim has been appointed, this will leave our 3rd world county with yet more loss. Attached is a link to the CNN story.

Please pray for his family, the country of Ethiopia, and our adoption that it will not be affected by this tragedy.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/08/21/world/africa/ethiopia-prime-minister-dead/index.html

Biometric Appointment

We are very excited that we received our appointment for our biometric prints for USCIS. We are scheduled to be there on Sep. 6 at 1pm.

Also, aside from this immigration approval from USCIS our Dossier is COMPLETE!!! Yes, that's what I said, D-O-N-E!! This is such a huge relief, I can't convey how much stress this has helped to alleviate.

So what's next you ask? Well, we have one last training to complete for the international adoption clinic, we need to mail in a check to have our dossier authenticated, and we need to send in our immigration approval when it arrives. So, we are still on track to be officially placed on the waiting list by October :)

Support Group

Warren and I attended a support group from our agency tonight in Louisville. All the families there, with the exception of one, were adopting from Ethiopia. They were all in various stages of the process including a family who received their referral yesterday! It was really great to meet others in the same journey and get to have some face time with people from our agency.

As of now we are currently still trying to obtain a letter from our health insurance provider, grrr! However, we were given a alternative if we absolutely can not get it but it too may be a long shot.

Also, USCIS is currently processing our request for adoption and we should receive our fingerprint appointment any day.

IF, we receive that appointment before the end of next week and IF our insurance letter arrives before the end of the month, THEN, we "should" be officially placed on the waiting list! EEK! Once we are on the list it will take approximately 12 months for a referral, I know, that's a very long time. But, we are hoping to at least receive our referral and see their face by next Christmas and travel to meet them shortly after.

Dossier Drama

*WARNING* This post is a little whiny; I just really needed to vent about this process a little!

So we are down to needing just three more documents for our dossier to be complete, and we are having a lot of trouble.

1) We need a letter from our health insurance provider stating that we have coverage and that we can add our adopted child to the policy. I don't see why this is such a big deal. We have coverage, we pay a substantial amount each month for this coverage, and legally they have to add our child once the adoption is finalized. The provider, however, states that they are not allowed to provide such documents or make those claims for legal reasons. We have been fighting with them for over a month now, and have spoken with the supervisors, supervisor, supervisor, and so on. They will just send us letter after letter stating that we are "eligible" for coverage with a computer-generated signature (not a real ink signature). There are over 2,500 adoptions from Ethiopia each year, all of which require this statement, surely we are not the first to make this request; our provider is a national brand.

2) We need a local police clearance letter. This is a letter from our local police department stating that we are not criminals. I don't know why this is needed since we have already had a state background check, two FBI clearances, and child abuse and neglect checks, but it's an Ethiopian requirement. Our local police also refuse to provide this letter stating that they cut that service a few years ago. So, we have been cleared to have a Kentucky State Police (tell me how that's different than state criminal check and FBI?) clearance as a substitute for this requirement. We sent this form off yesterday and are hoping it doesn't take long to process.

3) Finally, we need a letter from Warren's life insurance provider stating that he has a policy and the value of that policy. So far they have sent this 25 page confirmation packet that no one will ever be able to translate into Amharic....We're just looking for one simple paragraph with a letterhead and signature.

So needless to say we are a little stressed. Everything else is falling into place - we should get our fingerprint appointments for USCIS (yet another FBI check) soon with our approval by October. At that time, given the three above documents come in, our dossier will be complete and sent on for authentication in Washington, D.C and then to the Ethiopian Embassy and finally on to Ethiopia!

We are so eager to have our Abijah (or Selah) home! We have been told many times that our lives are going to change once he arrives: yes we know, and we can't wait!!!

Thanks for your thoughts and prayers, they mean the world to us!

Moving On

We have "officially" had our home study approved!

Because our home study has been completed for a while, just working on wording that Ethiopia likes more, we have already started our Dossier. This is a huge packet of information that will be sent along with our home study to Ethiopia. We are working hard to get all these documents together, but since they all have to be notarized by the person we are requesting them from, it is taking much longer than we would like.

We just finished our paperwork for USCIS (immigration paperwork to bring orphan into the US) and are waiting on our notarized copy of the home study to send along with it. Really hoping that it arrives before the end of the week. Once USCIS has our paperwork, they will notify us of our appointment for FBI background checks, which we will have to go to either Louisville or Cincinnati to complete. The total processing time for USCIS is about 90 days.

We are hoping to be finished with our Dossier by the time our USCIS approval arrives.

Did I mention that this is a long and tedious process? Oy! I know that it will all be worth it when I see the sweet face our our child!

Anniversary

Today is our anniversary! Warren and I have grown so close over these past two years and God has truly blessed us!
I pray that we will have MANY MANY more years together and that we will continue to grow in our faith together!

Fundraising

In addition to the yard sale we have planned for June 22-23, we are also going to be selling t-shirts. We have designed these shirts using Vista prints so all of the profits will go directly to our adoption fund.

Shirts are available in all sizes from S to XXL and a choice of three colors: white, gray, or black.

Color/Cost

White   $15
Gray     $18
Black    $20

There is an additional $2 charge for XXL and an additional $3 charge if we need to mail it to you.

To order a shirt email, facebook, comment on the blog, or call us. Payments can be made to us or through our paypal link on the blog.

Yard Sale

So the first thing that we are planning to do to start raising funds is a yard sale. We are hoping to get a date set for late June and try to sell everything that we can. I'm not sure how successful this will be as I have never had a yard sale but we are faithful.

If you have any items that you would like to donate to the sale please let us know! Also, if you have experience and would like to help us that would be amazing.

This will be just the first of many efforts to bring our baby home. If you have any ideas or past events you have done to raise funds please share them.

As always, thank you to everyone who is praying for us! We love you all!!!

Welcome to the adoption blog of Warren and Christina!

We have just started the international adoption process, and are excited to see what the Lord has in store for us!

 The agency we are working with is located here in Ky and is called Adopt Inc. and have been wonderful to work with. There's a lot to do - but thankfully the adoption agency has everything mapped-out and will be with us each step of this new journey.

Since before Warren and I married in 2010 we both knew that adoption was something we were called to do. We, like most couples had dreams of having our own family but through many difficulties and aching hearts know that this is now the right time to begin this journey. We are not giving up on our dreams of having our own birth children, but God has already started to form an equal - and somewhat stronger - desire in our hearts for a child from Ethiopia.

We know that on our own we will never be able to fund an adoption and on our own we can not grow our family so, we are leaving it all up to the One who is already directing our path, God. We are asking that our friends and family pray for us as we start this journey. At this time please pray specifically that we will be able to earn the necessary funds to bring our child home, that God will lay a protective hand over our child as they are being knit in the womb and being cared for at birth until we can come, and that we will have continued peace and patience through this process.